Brilliance, It's In Their DNA: Mike Smith at TEDxYouth@Lincoln

In his uplifting talk, Mike Smith challenges both youth and adults to get ready for what this generation will bring to the table.

Over the past years,
I've had the opportunity

to travel to hundreds of high schools
across the country.

I stood on the front of
tens of thousands of young people

and I've asked them a question,
one simple question.

That question is:

What do you want to be remembered for?

What do you want your legacy to be?

When your time is done

walking up and down
the halls of your high school,

what's that thing
that you want to leave behind?

What's it that you want them
to say about you?

I've asked tens of thousands
of young people that question.

And what's crazy to me,
is as I ask that question,

I begin to get responses back,

whether it's on Twitter
or Instagram or Facebook

or emails or hand-written letters,

there's always a common thread
throughout all the responses.

You know it has nothing to do with
they want to remembred for their job,

they want to be remembered
for the money that they make.

It was far different than that.

Young people all across the country

they all write and they tell me
they want to be remembered for one thing:

and that's change.

They all want to be a part
of something incredible.

They all want to be a part
of bringing change to their communities,

to their schools, to the world.

And it doesn't matter where I go.

It doesn't if it's New York or L.A.

It doesn't matter
if it's Washington or Florida,

Nashville or small rural
communities in Nebraska.

Young people all across
the United States,

they all want to be a part
of something incredible.

You know I call that
"The tiny whisper."

I think that this tiny whisper
lives inside each and everyone of us.

I think there's this thing
inside all of us

telling us that we can be
about something incredible,

we can be about something big.

Have you ever asked
the five or six year old

what they want to be
when they grow up.

Their eyes light up, they look at you

and they give you responses with nothing
but hope and excitement for the future.

The sky's the limit at that point.

"Mom, I want to be an astronaut."

"Dad, I want to be a firefighter."

"I want to be an artist,
I want to be a musician."

When I was a young person
I just wanted to be a ninja turtle.

(Laughter)

But as we grow up,
that tiny whisper, it starts to change.

As we come from five to six to seven,

as we begin to hit middle school

which is the most awkward years
for most of us,

as we survive that time in our life
we went on into high school,

and all of the sudden,

it's like that tiny whisper start
to get beat down by the outside world.

Young people start
to hear from the first time:

"You can do that.
You'll never make money doing this.

There's no college degree for that.

That's not a career."

And all the sudden,

that tiny little whisper
that lives inside each and everyone of us

telling so we can be
a part of something incredible,

that we can create
something for ourselves,

will start to get drowned out
by this outside noise,

this pressure and all of these abilities
and desires and things

that we have to do
to perform and to make it

to get better test grade,
to get a better test score,

to make it to college
because if you don't go to college

you can't have a career
and if you don't have a career

you can't amount anything.

All of the sudden, that tiny whisper
that lives inside of us,

it begins to just kinda get drowned out.

And then those people
go from adolescence to adulthood,

and then when we come adults

we've kind of lost this idea
that we have this thing,

we wanted to be about this thing
that we were so passionate for

and we've almost cashed in this concept.

You know one good test
that I give for a lot of people

I say, "Have you ever seen someone
do something incredible?

Have you ever seen
someone do something so inspiring?"

And you watch that and you see it,

and you're forced
to respond one of two ways:

You see someone do
something incredible inspiring

and it tells you man, that's amazing.

I got to go out to catch.
I got to go do something

I got to go for feel
what I was created to do

because that's incredible.

Or we see someone
do something inspiring

and we instantly become jealous
or angry or bitter.

It's almost like
that person did what we couldn't do.

That person for feel
that thing in them

that we could never
for feel in ourselves.

They took that chance
that we were willing to take.

And as young people we look at adults

and we feel like
that's what we see in society,

we see the adults who maybe forgot

what that tiny little whisper
was telling inside of them

when they were just the young kid.

You see, I have this thought,

it's this thought that every young person
wants to remembered for something.

They do.

It's that driving force behind.

They all want to do
something incredible,

they all want to be
about something bigger.

And as we grow older,
we're forced to make these decisions,

we're forced to decide,

we're forced to do things
that tell us whether we can

or what we can't make it.

You know when I was young,

I thought education meant
high school, college, degree.

And I believe that young people
define education differently today.

I believe that young people, they define
success very differently today.

When I talk to young people,
success isn't how much money you make,

it's what kind of
a difference you can make.

When I talk to young people,
education isn't always about a degree,

it's about fulfilling that thing
you think you were created to do.

You know, I walk in and out of
high schools and I speak to young people

and I look at this raw
emotion and passion in their eyes,

and I see that they so desperately
want to be brilliant.

They so desperately want
to fulfill this thing.

I think that being a part
of something incredible,

I think it's written in the DNA
of young people today.

I think it's written,

it's like it's been upload in the DNA

and the strands of who they are
and who they think that they can become.

You know my education...

I graduated in high school
with the 2.4 GPA.

I got a nineteen on my ICT.

I limped into college.

I'll never forget staying up late
studying for test,

memorizing dates only to forget them
as soon as I handed in.

That wasn't my education.

My education came,

when I started to listen
to that tiny whisper inside me,

to that thing that told me
I could be about something incredible

it came far after college.

It told me that Mike,
you can take this piece of plywood

that's attached to some metal
with some wheels on it.

That skateboard, that thing
that your mom, dad and your friends

think you're too old to ride around on.

You can take that thing
and you can use it to cause change.

You can take that thing
and you can use it to give back.

You can take that skateboard
and use it to make a difference.

I began to listen to that tiny whisper
saying, "I think I can."

So I grabbed that skateboard
and my backpack,

and in my backpack
I put socks, food, water,

hygiene kits and bus passes.

I grabbed the couple young kids
who still believe like I did,

that that tiny whisper
was what we were supposed to do,

and we began skating
around the street of Lincoln,

just feeding homeless people.

Giving out socks,
giving out food, giving out water.

See, that was when my education started.

I found myself underneath a bridge

talking to people who'd lived outside
for twenty or thirty years.

Those people became my professors.

Those people taught
what it means to dream.

They taught what it means to succeed,

they taught what it means to fail.

Those people taught me
what it means to believe in yourself

and they showed me,

what it looks like when you forget
about that tiny little whisper

and you start to buy
in to different things.

You see I stand before you today,

excited because I have this idea.

This social change
is written in the DNA

of the young people who walk
up and down the halls of high schools

that we see all across
the United States of America.

I believe that young people,
it's written in who they are

that they want to give back
and they want to make a difference.

When I ask kids what they to stand for,
what they want to do,

it's always these big concepts,
and big ideas

that's they're going
to have the ability, the opportunity.

Life has created them
in a way to make change.

Life has given them a chance
to be a part of something incredible.

You see I believe that
the society that we live in today,

there is this gap between adults
and there is this gap between kids

and I think the technology
has a lot to do with that.

I think that the way the social media
has a lot to do with that.

I mean how many of you adults

had have your kids asked you
how to use their iPhone?

They've shown me what it means,
they become your teachers.

So with this idea and this thought
that change is written in the DNA,

in the hearts, in the minds
and in the souls of young people,

I have a question for the adults today.

And my question is this:

Are you ready for us?

Because I believe that there is
a tidal wave of young people coming.

A tidal wave of young people
who believe just like I do.

They believe that making a difference
matters more than making money.

There is a tidal wave
of young people coming with 2.4 GPA.

There is a tidal wave
of young people coming

who have degrees
from YouTube University.

There is a tidal wave
of young people coming

who follow their dreams
and hopes and goals on Twitter,

and they post the things that
they want to be about on Instagram.

I believe that there is a tidal wave
of young people coming

who believe just like as I believe
when I was a little kid

and like I believe now.

The change is written in our DNA.

So my question for the world today is,

are you ready for us?

Because we're coming.

Thank You.

(Cheers)
(Applause)